We tried to foster a dog and failed. How did we fail? We kept him. The point of fostering is to give the animal a temporary home. Get to know him, take care of him, and then find the perfect home that fits his personality. Well, it only took about 3 hours for us to fall in love with Franklin and forget our purpose as fosters!

Meet Our Foster Failure Franklin

I had been begging to foster a dog for over a year. Every maternal instinct that I have is toward helping animals. I also “like” so many rescue pages on facebook and see their updates about needing fosters that I wanted to help. Fostering is a huge part of the rescue system. If more people fostered, more dogs could be saved.

Mike finally agreed to let us give it a try. This would mean a third dog in our small house. I signed up right away with the Midwest Boston Terrier Rescue. Soon after, I received a call to see if we could foster a senior Boston who was at a shelter. A little old man dog? No problem! Well, long story short, he was adopted before we could get him. Great news for him!

After that we got a call seeing if we could take in a puppy. From a senior to a puppy is a huge difference. Puppies are a ton more work and responsibility, but we still agreed. We drove to Indiana to meet the two amazing ladies who were transporting the puppies from Ohio. That’s how short they are on fosters — they need to travel to another state to find one. 🙁

Franklin and his brother were just a cuteness overload. These little guys were abandoned in a home. They both had skin irritation and missing fur due to sleeping on insulation. Their mother was a beagle mix and their father a purebred Boston Terrier. That’s really all the story we knew about them. We got Franklin (#FosterFrank) and his brother was on his way to his forever home, thankfully.

On the way home Franklin placed his tiny paw on my arm and I knew I was a goner. Everyone predicted that we would end up adopting him and that’s exactly what happened.

Some foster programs remove you if you end up keeping the pet and becoming a foster failure. MWBTR doesn’t do that, but we have to set our own limit in our household. Otherwise we will end up with 12 dogs. So for now we have our three guys, and we just adore them. We will continue to support rescues monetarily as much as possible, and definitely foster again one day.

Franklin’s hashtag has been changed from #FosterFrank to #ForeverFrank and we have zero regrets! 😉

About Jennifer

Jennifer is the founder of A Magical Mess. She is married to a wonderful man, and together they live with their three rescue dogs. Jen is an entrepreneur who loves the hustle. Hobbies include work, reading, and learning about new technology.

My daughter loves animals and has been begging for a dog forever. She’s great with them. There are two problems though. First, hubby is afraid of dogs and second, our condo building doesn’t allow ANY pets.

In any case, fostering would be hard for her. She’d want to keep every dog. Btw, Franklin is adorable 🙂

Awww, so glad I saw this post! He is adorable!!!! So sweet. I showed you my foster failure (Tucker) and one of my current fosters last weekend. We have 2 cats and 2 dogs of our own and that is my personal limit but I do foster still – usually just one at a time, but this last time I brought 3 home because I just couldn’t take one knowing his siblings didn’t have a foster home (one has been adopted already, one is likely going to be adopted and one is having some health issues so he will be with us for a bit longer to get him healthy). Its hard, but I don’t foster because its easy.. I foster because I’ve personally seen the ugly side – I’ve seen litters of young puppies die in shelters, I’ve seen dogs be put down due to lack of space. My fosters steal my heart the second they are placed in my arms… I cry as I kiss them goodbye, but the joy I feel for their new families so amazing too.

OH yeah! Thanks for stopping by!! Yes, I would still foster, too, but the hubby is the voice of reason in this house. :/ We need a bigger house and LAND and I will totally take in a bunch more! I agree with you about fostering. Seeing them find great homes and then making room for more is extremely rewarding!

Not a foster failure, but felt like a failure. We rescued a kitten, Scooter. His mom was feral. She was hit by a car, and he had nowhere to go. No one wanted him, I found out why. When we met him, he was sleeping, and seemed like such a sweetie. Once we got home literally all HELL broke loose. He knocked over anything that was not nailed down. He tore up my rug! He was a holy terror! But he was ours. It took five months to where we feel safe. Now he is so attached, if my hubby wants to take a nap, Scooter will bounce on him to wake him up. He wants the company. He is just now, 10 months later coming to us to sit with us and let us pet him. Of course his time with mommy is when she sits at the computer. He was our 4th rescue, and maybe our last. We never say never! We said that before we got him! Don’t get me wrong, we love him to pieces and would not trade him, I only wish he liked to be cuddled, but he does not.

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